"CJB, Appalachian clogging or flatfooting is never (or certainly not typically) danced in English clogs, so between that and Guest,LTD's reference to the morris context, it's clear she's not talking about Appalachian clogging. Originally, all of these forms were free-form, individualized step dancing, so "folkie tap dancing" is not a particularly distinguishing term. ~ Becky in Tucson"

But I disagree that all the step dance traditions in the States were free-form. Maybe flat-footing / buck dancing were free-form and individualised.

BUT there were at least four clog dancing (wooden-soled shoes) traditions in the States that had routines up to a point and all but one of these has been completely neglected for over 80 years.

Seek out Rhett Kraus' excellent articles on Clog Dancing on the America Music Hall Stage (CDSS Journal). Tony Barrand has some of the original wooden split-soled shoes used by some of the professional clog dancers - Dick Sands, Henry Tucker, Ed. James, and others. Their manuals are all online. They date from the late 1800s. Their steps routines have been ignored and unresearched for years.

And I'm not talking about Juba here - although he and the other negro minstels of his time would be yet a second tradition of clog dancing (with wooden-soled shoes) now also lost forever.

Then there are the routines in the books by Helen Frost from the 1920s which describe old-time clog dance routines (wooden-soled shoes again).

And finally there are the Marleys, researched and filmed by Tony Barrand. See: http://homepages.sover.net/~barrand/NDM.html

So in comparison with these four (at least) forgotten traditions the so-called Appalachian 'clog' dancing simply isn't 'clog dancing.' No clogs or wooden-soled shoes are worn, but taps shoes with metal / fibre glass taps are.

The term 'clogging' for Appalachian step dancing (in tap shoes) is only used, and sadly is highly commercialised into a multi-million dollar business, because our young Queen at the times saw some flat-footing / buck dancing once on a visit to Appalachia and thought that it looked a bit like real clog dancing as per the English form. For some unknown reason the term 'clogging' then stuck to what she saw - but clogging it ain't.